THAT Digimon Site

Well, here it is: one of the major things that makes Digimon different from every other anime series in existence: the widespread use of Coupling Terms. Also known as Shipping Names, Couple Names, and Pairing Designations.

These, for anyone who DIDN'T know, are those strange words which combine two parts of the names of two characters and throw 'em together to get a quick word which means: "I am a word that is short for a pairing between so-and-so & so-and-so..." Examples include: Taito, Mimato, Taiora, Mizzy, Jyoura, Daikeru, and many, MANY more...

Now, this isn't something that just simultaneously popped into the heads of every digimon fan everywhere all at the same time through mass hypnosis by spork-wielding aliens... Nope, there is actually some truth behind all this madness. In the Japanese fan community, anime pairings are sometimes referred to in this manner. HOWEVER, in the Jap system, these words were only used for YAOI AND YURI PAIRINGS! Yaoi (Male-Male relationship) and Yuri (Female-Female relationship) pairings are quite common in the Jap world of anime. So, you might see these words floating around on banners and pictures of characters all over the place on Japanese fansites... Well, apparently, SOMEONE did, because the words Taito, Jyoushirou, Daikeru, and Kouchi began popping up on AMERICAN fansites pretty quickly. Now, I'm not sure who started it, it may have been a number of people at once, but the fact remains that these words were not explained thoroughly to the mainly American-entertainment-only fans of Digimon. Thus, the Coupling Titles were brought forth unto Digimon fanstuffs...

Now, I pretty much think that this is a pretty cool idea to whoever came up with it: Let's combine the first part of one character's name with the last part of another character's name to form one word to mean that I've paired them up in this picture/fanfic/webshrine. Great idea, now Digimon has something that no other anime series has! Kewl, but I think we're getting ourselves confused, we need to stick the system together better, so I have located and found the rules by which the Jap system follows, and I suppose we could bend 'em a little to suit our American needs (aren't we selfish? Oh well, that's what makes us American!) (Salutes a flag and begins spouting the pledge of allegiance) (But enough of that... ^_^)

1. Terms apply to the pairing of two characters

*Jap system: Yaoi and Yuri characters only

*US system: Straight, Homo, Pedophile, or Bestial, whoever we're pairing, we can make it a name! ^_^

2. The first part of one character's name is placed before the end of another character's name

*Jap system: order is according to which character is the dominant of the relationship as the first, and the submissive character of the relationship being last.

*US system: we should probably use the above rule, but since we have also included straight and digimon pairings into the mix, normally as long as it sounds like a word, we go with it... Thus:

the only rule is use the Japanese names of the characters (human, since it's hard to find the Jap names of all the digimon...) because mixing the english names is not only harder, but sounds stupid... (Mizzy... ICK! I hate that name... -_-*)

3. The names are divided up by syllables: meaning cut each name into sections at the vowel end of each sound so that the name will flow together when you combine them! ^_^

*Jap system: in Japanese, the names are already written in syllables, so it's the only logical way for them to write it...

*US system: This is tricky to explain, so I'm going to use Taichi, Mimi, Koushirou, and Jyou for the examples.

Example one: Taichi is divided up by syllables like this: Ta - i - chi Notice how there is a cut between each time there is a vowel...

Example two: Mimi is divided simply like this: Mi - Mi Since it's the same syllable twice, it makes some Mimi pairing difficult to write correctly.

Example three: Koushirou/Koshiro is divided two different ways depending upon the translation: with the first spelling, the long "ou" is used, and in the second spelling, the long "ou" is shortened to a single "o", there is no real pronunciation difference, but the long "ou" is the most correct of the two... Thus the division goes: Ko - o - shi - ro - o (notice how the "u"s become "o"s when they are separated, this is due to spelling convenience on the translator's part) The shorter spelling is this: Ko - shi - ro (makes sense, and believe it or not, it sounds EXACTLY the same as the longer spelling... if you pronounce it right...)

Example four: Jyou is divided technically like this: Ji - o - o (weird, huh? But it's said so quickly, that it's treated as one sound) like this: Jo This also makes Jyou pairings harder to spell, here's some examples of how the syllables should be mixed.

Ex #1: Mimi x Taichi like this: Mi - chi OR Mi - i -chi OR Ta - i - mi OR Ta - mi (See how I got that? Easy, ne?)

Ex #2: Taichi x Koushirou like this: Ta - i -shi -rou OR Kou - i - chi OR Kou - shi -chi OR Kou - i - chi OR Ta - shi -rou OR Ta - i - rou OR Ta - rou (Tarou not recommended as it is an actual Japanese name already) (See how many possible combinations there are for just ONE pairing?) (this is why we NEED organization!)

Ex #3: Jyou x Mimi like this: Jo - mi OR Mi - Jo OR Mi - yo (and now you see how few combinations there are and none of these names sound all that great either... it's really sad...)

4. The elusive American-only rule: Digimon pairings... combine the first part of the Digimon's name with another part of a human's name. OR combine the first part of a Digimon's name with the first part of another digimon's name and tack the word 'mon' at the end of it.

For example: Patamon and Gatomon:

GatoPatamon or PataGatomon or PataGato

For example: Yamato and Gabumon:

GabuYama or YamaGabu or Gabumato or Gabuto

For further reference, here is the incredibly too-long list of pairings...

God... I hope that's all of them... I spent about two hours making sure these were all correct and the most popular of the correct terms... it's hard (especially for Wallace...) I put the two most popular Digimon-human pairings on there as well just to help anyone out...

Now, anyway, as I've stated before, this is all fact and though I want to hear your opinion, there's not much you can do to change facts unless you can prove some new facts that I'll simply add to this editorial... ::shakes fingers after typing so many names on the list... this is HARD!

Ucchan signing out ! ^_^